Josie - THE DOG

This is Josie (A.K.A. Josiah Beth when she's in trouble and sometimes known as simply THE DOG).

She's got the best disposition and since T came into our lives she became very PROTECTIVE. She growls at anyone that walks by our house (thankfully they can't hear from the street). She runs to the door when someone knocks on it and sniffs them out before she barks or licks them. Josie even growls and barks at us (with the tale just a wagging) every time we come home or get silly or make one of T's toys go off over and over again (he he he). Se finally figured out she has a growl and howl in her.

She loves T, she follows him everywhere (well almost everywhere, if you remember from one of the earlier posts she ran the other way when T crawled into her crate).

Christmas 2004 A and I wanted a dog, he wanted a Golden Retriever and I wanted a 20 pound dog and we did not want to spend 100's of dollars on a DOG. It was the Saturday before Christmas and we went on the "search." Several hours later we headed home with nothing; we decided to go home eat lunch and then set out again.

It was as we turned into the neighborhood three puppies and a dog ran in front of us and I said "Oh puppies, I know where the big dog lives those must be her puppies, let's go to their house." Well we found out the "big dog" was possibly the daddy, however the mommy was no where to be found, they found her on the highway and before they could find her owners she was pregnant. Shortly after she delivered the puppies she got out of their yard and they never saw her again. Well they were obviously looking for homes for the puppies so we took the only one who would pay attention to us. The vet figured we got an 8 to 10 week old MUT. With what she looked like we thought she would get 60 plus pounds, however, she is a tiny MUT, only 40 pounds. She looks like a Lab, German Shepherd, Collie; those are all big dogs (bigger than 40 pounds) so no telling what she is. She's got the webbed feet and disposition of a lab, however the bark is WAY too deep for her size.

We eventually took her to Doggie School and she graduated; Doggie School ended in September 2005 and we did not "see" improvement in her behavior until December and then about the time we got T it appeared that Doggie School clicked with her. A's Uncle giggles when we talk about Josie and her obedience training with getting on the bed. Sometimes Josie sneaks on the bed when we are sleeping and one of us will wake up and say "Where are you supposed to be?" She promptly gets up and gets off the bed.

Josie also gets grounded on occasion, for her grounding is to THE CRATE. While she goes without incident (99.9% of the time, as soon as I say 100% she'll misbehave at this tomorrow) to the crate on the days that we both work. When she is bad, we'll tell her go to the crate and she'll immediately stop whatever bad thing she's doing and sit down, she knows that's her last shot and if she does not straighten up its to THE CRATE she goes.

Josie got her name because we could not think of ANYTHING for her and then I said "Josie," and A looked at me and said "JOSIE" with this strange look. I said well we already have 2 cats (the missing link, Silas will be discussed later) so Josie and the pussycats. For any of you animal lovers, let me know if you know what she MIGHT be...... I've included 2 pictures as one shows how long her LEGS are..... She's all LEGS.......

AL